Stop Huffing & Puffing and Give the Guy a Break

Aubrey Huff of the San Francisco Giants is the most recent of a batch of prominent MLB players who have gone on the disabled list with an emotional disorder.  While many across the blogosphere and within the sports-talk radio community express little sympathy over the anxiety afflicting a guy making $11 million per year to play a kid’s game, I suspect these ‘haters’ are missing something.  They’re failing to identify something human and imperfect found even amongst big-time athletes whose symmetrical faces, seemingly impenetrable confidence, and flawless physical movements are splashed all over prime-time television.  Fame and financial security are wonderful rewards of a professional athlete, yes, but this is often accompanied by an overwhelming stress to meet expectations.  And nobody knows the extent of this stress – not the media, not coaches, not us sport psych professionals – expect the athlete him or herself.

 

Yet some wonderfully interesting findings have emerged in recent research, particularly relevant to situations like Huff’s, that may offer a glimpse into his experience and others’ in high-stakes, big-money positions.

 

In sports, it’s often assumed that the more people are paid, the harder they will work, and the better they will do their jobs — until, of course, they reach the limits of their skills. That notion tends to hold true when the stakes are low; however new research from Caltech suggests that when there are high financial incentives to succeed, people can become so afraid of losing their potentially lucrative reward – or, for those who are guaranteed a certain reward, their reputation or social standing – that their performance suffers.  Some fascinating experiments were conducted that demonstrated that performance improves as incentives increase — but only when the reward amounts were at the low end of the spectrum. Once the rewards pass a certain threshold (which depends on the individual athlete), performance begins to fall off.

 

In other words, the more loss-averse an athlete is, the more likely he or she will fall victim to this.  According to the lead author of the study who conducted the experiments, when loss-aversive people see the incentive that they’re being offered, they initially encode it as a gain, and parts of the brain that are associated with incentives are activated.  This causes performance enhancement initially.  But once they started doing the task and incentives began to rise, the same brain area decreased in activity, and performance worsened. Rising incentives prompted worry about losing something they haven’t even received yet (in the study’s case, it was money; however loss-aversive athletes may have similar maladaptive reactions to potentially losing something other than money, like admiration, teammate/family support, fan approval, etc.)

 

Maybe training somebody like Huff to be less loss-averse may help him avoid performing poorly in stressful situations.  But the fact remains that nobody can appreciate what Aubrey Huff is experiencing, and the more these cases are brought into public light, the better able sports media and fans will be to understand.  Exercise some empathy and give him a break.

Standing Tall for Success

In all likelihood, you were at some point during your childhood commanded by your parents to “stand up straight” and “not slouch.”  You probably obliged, though you may never have understood the reasoning behind their demand.  Well, there may be something to it…

According to new research, “posture expansiveness,” or positioning oneself in a way that opens up the body and takes up space, activates a sense of power that produces behavioral changes in a person independent of their actual rank or hierarchical role in an organization or team.   In other words, adopting an open body posture – shoulders back, standing tall, chest out, chin up – plays an important role in determining if people act as though they are in charge, regardless of whether they actually are! To test this theory, various experiments such as a verbal recall task, word completion exercise and blackjack game were conducted with participants in a 2011 study from Northwestern University.  Those with open body posture thought about more power-related words and generally took more action than those with closed body postures in each experiment.  Strong, powerful posture, it was concluded, had a strong effect in making a person think and act in a more powerful way. 

 

Significant findings, undoubtedly.  Think about the transferability of this for you as an athlete. 

 

First, envision your typical response to such experiences as physical fatigue, on-field mistakes, performance distractions, even altercations with family and friends.  Does your reaction to these challenges – specifically, the manner in which you carry yourself – help or hurt your subsequent performance?

 

For a football player preparing for the Combine or his Pro Day, standing tall and assuming powerful body language on the field and in the weight room will help in a number of areas.  There are, for instance, anatomical benefits.  Open posture assists in reducing stress and strain on your spine and improving muscle tone, especially the core, back and neck.  It also opens the diaphragm, allowing increased oxygen into the system and better breathing techniques which improve circulation.

 

Then there’s the confidence boost – stemming from more powerful thoughts and more decisiveness – that comes with a strong, open posture.  Not only that, but your strengthened posture may change others’ perceptions of you as well.  Teammates may be positively influenced (and opponents negatively so) as a result of your projection of confidence.

 

A professional hockey player with whom I recently worked was lamenting over the fact that his demeanor would, without his initally realizing it, immediately turn negative and ‘drooping’ in the face of a foolish penalty or a weak shift.  He identified that his weakened posture affected his between-shift attitude, which set him up for another poor shift, or another foolish penalty.

 

While a certain posture won’t guarantee success, the “right” posture will yield physical benefits as well as more dominant thoughts and behaviors, thereby putting you in a great position for success.  So why wouldn’t we “stand up straight” and “not slouch” all the time??

 

Think about specific instances in your life in which you easily get “off track” or off your game.  The solution may start with your posture.

Gratitude…it’s the Holidays, after all

Now, in the wake of Thanksgiving, may be an appropriate time to acknowledge the parallels between the holiday and athletics.  The New York Times recently published an article offering some practical advice for cultivating an “attitude of gratitude”.  Research outside the sporting arena has linked gratitude to better health, sounder sleep, less anxiety and depression, higher long-term satisfaction with life and kinder behavior toward others.  Some suggestions were dispensed for enhancing one’s gratitudinal strength:

 

• Keep a journal listing five things for which you feel grateful, like a friend’s generosity, something you have learned, a sunset you have enjoyed.  Research has demonstrated that people who do this once a week for two months will report more optimism and happiness, fewer physical problems, and more time working out.
• Try it on your family.  Do one small thoughtful or generous thing for a member of your family, perhaps once a week to start.
• Write a short letter to someone who changed your life for the better. Be specific about what the person did and how it affected you. Deliver it in person. 

 

The tradeoff seems rather advantageous: make a list, do a generous deed, write a letter, and better health & heightened quality of life await.  Granted, completing these tasks won’t guarantee a better life, but living your life purposefully – with a bit more gratitude – is sure to make at least a bit of difference.

 

There’s wonderful applicability to athletics.  Research within sport has identified a relationship between gratitude amongst adolescent athletes and increased team satisfaction, less athlete burnout, and greater overall well-being. 

 

But, being grateful for what, exactly?  The trees?  The dirt?  Making the team?

 

Gratitude, for the purpose of this discussion, can be defined as “an estimate of gain coupled with the judgment that someone else is responsible for that gain”.  Estimating and appreciating gain (performing well; being promoted from bench player to starter; recognizing physical improvements in the gym) and identifying that other people were involved in making it happen, then, appear like important steps towards feeling grateful.

 

Here’s a splendid example: the former Olympian Carl Lewis reports in his autobiography that feeling grateful to his competitors became part of his competition routine.  Without opponents, Lewis could not have been personally challenged to the extent that he was with opponents.  He could not have experienced victory without opponents.  There would be no Gold without opponents.  Lewis chose to embrace the presence of his competitors as required figures in his quest for performance excellence. This attitudinal shift seemed to serve him well.

 

I suggest you live your sporting life purposefully, with a bit more gratitude, and you will become more embracing of each competitive experience, too.

To Block or Not To Block

See post here – unfortunately, I was unable to insert diagrams directly into the blog.  So please find full piece here:

 

PSPS blog #4

 

 

 

Get Out There and Do It

My response to “Stacey” will be similar in nature to that of my colleagues.  I’ll expound upon one point in particular below.

 

How do I get my name out there?

 

By getting your name out there.  I mean no disrespect or condescension with this comment.  I am a young practitioner and only very mildly experienced in the consulting field.  But this action-focused approach has seemed to work well.  You gain exposure by actively exposing yourself as a competent professional to the kind of people you wish to be working with.  You “do” sport psychology by choosing to do it!

 

Think of most any professional industry – jeweler, accountant, dentist, personal trainer, pizzeria owner, street performer, insurance broker, chiropractor, etc.  In order for each specialist to successfully ingrain oneself into the professional landscape, one must have the ability to captivate an audience (promote the product) and deliver the goods (effectively provide the product).  The Italian-raised pizzeria owner who uses only the freshest of ingredients, the most savory of spices, and the most succulent of meats & cheeses may be out of business in a matter of months if he remains secretly tucked away at the corner of a side street out of public awareness.  The shrewd businessman who buys space at the same corner and builds a pizzeria, allocating all funds towards the promotion and marketing of the business while disregarding the actual making of the pizza may also be out of business fairly quickly once the public discovers the inauthenticity of the food.  A beautiful harmony of product promotion and quality must exist for the pizzeria to thrive.  This is true of sport psychology, too.

 

Sport psychology remains a field of self-promotion.  The same cannot be said of other performance-enhancing arenas in as literal a manner like nutritional counseling and strength & conditioning.  Coaches may say, Our team is too slow/has too many non-contact injuries/has no energy while competing.  I must employ a speed coach/fitness coach/nutritional coach to address these issues.  Most coaches aren’t as readily willing to acknowledge the potential benefits of a mental skills coach.  It is, then, SO important for us to make ourselves known by going out there and speaking about mental skills training, as Ed says, and its obvious benefits to athletes.  This can be done as an independent consultant (your first job, Stacey, may very well be consulting independently, without the security of an employer).

 

A personal account: when I first entered the consulting field four years ago, I did so with the narrow vision of doing applied work.  For months I called professionals in the local sports community, left messages, wrote emails, set up meetings, left more messages…I was persistent bordering on irritating.  My goal was to convey the importance of mental skills training in such a way that these coaches/trainers/physical therapists would leave our meeting feeling like they simply COULDN’T survive without me working with their athletes.  How did we go all these years without using this guy? I would picture them say.  Then, the first shred of interest: a high school coach returned my call and suggested that we set up a workshop for his team of 35 boys highlighting a particular topic on which I had some scholastic familiarity.   And at that moment, all I could experience was sheer, unadulterated, defecation-inducing panic.  …Oh no, know what? What the hell am I doing? I don’t know the first thing about running workshops…I’m not equipped to do this.  There are so many consultants that are so much better than me.  I can’t do this.

 

Part of my feeling this way could have been attributed to the inharmonious balance I created between promotion and quality (I had been spending a greater percentage of my time promoting my services than doing the work, like reading and writing, to become proficient).  But much of it was due to my inexperience.  I wasn’t comfortable giving workshops, so I immediately resorted to panic.  I – and I suppose we as a species – tend to worry more about things that matter to us, so at least I knew this was important to me.  The truth is, going out there and doing sport psychology may at first be scary and intimidating and overwhelming and uncomfortable.  But wasn’t that the case in riding your bike for the first time, or taking your first steps, or shaving?  It all gets more comfortable.  Stacey, go out there and promote yourself with as much self-assuredness you can muster, and don’t allow unanswered messages to act as an immediate deterrent.  It sounds like you love the field – you’ve got to love the process that accompanies it.  Go out there and do it.

Facing the Fear

“True courage is not the absence of fear—but the willingness to proceed in spite of it.” Unknown
Driving through New York City late one night, I happened upon a radio segment whose host was interviewing a psychologist about the traumatic effects of surviving a high-magnitude earthquake.  Within his practice, he had witnessed the personal havoc that such an experience wrought on sensible, educated, previously healthfully-functioning individuals.  For instance, many of his patients were unable to shower, brush their teeth, or leave their house as they had associated those behaviors with the event.  The fears, noted the psychologist, were irrational and detracted from their ability to function normally.

But rather than encourage his patients to avoid or escape the fear, the psychologist based his work around helping them develop the courage to confront it.  Can’t take a shower anymore?  Well, you have to.  Finding it impossible to get in your car?  It’s got to be done; you can’t live like this.  In response to such firm commands and ‘courage training,’ nearly 80% of his patients made noticeable progress and healthy adjustments back into society.

Athletes, too, adopt irrational, performance-diminishing fears in response to their own “traumas.”  An athlete’s fear itself – of looking foolish or inadequate, of disappointing teammates or coaches, of particular opponents, of failing or succeeding – may not be particularly debilitating.  Instead, his response to the fear is what gets in the way of optimal performance.  Committed athletes, most of whom are highly solution-focused, may opt to escape from situations that cause or exacerbate fear.  The baseball player who is hitless on the season against that night’s starting pitcher may decide to “lay low” before the game and not watch tape or mentally rehearse his at-bats, as doing so may bring up familiar feelings of fear and incompetence.  The hockey player, upon taking the ice for his shift, may secretly wish for the puck not to be passed to him, as having the puck may aggravate his long-standing fear of doing something reckless with it.

Being avoidance-focused is not being solution-focused.  One must deal with a difficult situation in order to be classified as solution-focused.  And the only direct way to address fear is by developing the courage to confront it, and the trust that directly confronting it will produce favorable results over time.

This will take some discomfort.  But to realize our full potential, we’ve all got to be comfortable being uncomfortable.  Start with a firm command…

Not-So-Great Expectations

Working recently with a high school cross country runner, the theme of “expectations” has been a frequent discussion point.  Similar to many others, cross country is, without argument, a numerically-driven sport.  This runner bases his perceived competence, his athletic enjoyment, his post-race mood, his sense of self-worth, his family stability, even the soundness of his sleep on running time.  And I doubt he is unique in this outcome-glorified school of thought.  Time, after all, is so measurable, so final.  We can clearly see and understand numbers.  Especially for the high school athlete, mentally and physically rehearsing the actual result is more alluring than rehearsing the process by which the result is created.  It’s also often easier to image an outcome (the visual experience of running a 5:20 mile), than a feeling (the multi-sensory experience of running with confidence, purpose, and consistency).  One’s tendency to focus on the outcome can make running a certain time appear more easily attainable.  And what’s easily attainable should be expected, right?

Well, can a runner fully control his or her running time?  Weather conditions may play a factor, as may the quality of the track or running shoe, or the presence of other runners.  A runner does have total control over the amount of effort put forth, over his quality of preparation, over his sleeping patterns & eating habits, over his breathing patterns, his mid-race focus, and his attitude.  Beyond that, there’s very little over which he has complete power.  So how can something not fully within an athlete’s control – for instance, the outcome of a track meet – be expected?  When it comes to results and other uncontrollables, expectations have no place in sports.  Perhaps this real-life off-field example will demonstrate my point.

Imagine you are in the doctor’s office for your routine physical.  Expecting a clean bill of health, you’re surprised when the doctor tells you he’s detected an odd growth by your abdomen.  A bit concerned, a biopsy in conducted, the results for which will be available in 5 days.  After 5 days of unrelenting torture and thoughts of various worst-case scenarios, you receive a phone call reporting that the growth was benign.  You’re perfectly fine, the doctor says.  That moment, immediately following the phone call, may feel like the best of your life.  Nothing’s changed since 5 days prior – you have the same health, you’re in the same position in which you previously were – but you’re grateful for your health now.  Why?  You were hoping for it, yes, but you weren’t expecting it.

We typically go about our lives expecting health, taking it – among other things not completely within our control – for granted rather than being thankful and grateful every day for it.  Wouldn’t we experience greater happiness if we were to wake up every morning acknowledging and appreciating that which we seldom acknowledge and appreciate? “Wow, I feel great and healthy, I have warmth and food and vision and love – I’m so lucky for this.  I’ll make today a special one.”

In the context of sports, if one expects a certain result, the athlete may be underwhelmed in response to it being achieved (“Hey, I expected to run this time, I was supposed to do it, nothing surprising here”) and completely demoralized in response to it not being achieved (“I can’t believe I didn’t do it…I never thought this would happen, what’s wrong with me?”).  An athlete with outcome-oriented expectations has no opportunity to enjoy that youthful exuberance that accompanies success – an exuberance, I contend, that’s a prerequisite for maintaining motivation in sport – and may not fully appreciate that success.

But aren’t some expectations helpful?  Can’t we expect, for instance, to be properly energized for a race, to adopt a positive and relaxed attitude three minutes before the meet, or to maintain our focus mid-way through the race if passed by an opponent?   Well, these factors are personal, process-oriented, and lie within the power of our own control.  If we recognize that focusing on such factors are the ingredients to success, and we develop strategies and purposefully set goals to commit to these factors, then yes, we certainly may set expectations.  “In tomorrow’s meet, I expect to stay focused on my running rather than on everything else going on and expect to push myself to maximum intensity after the third lap.  To ensure this happens, I’ll leave reminders in my gym bag, read my mental notes on the bus ride there, and spend 3 minutes pre-race creating that mental image of what my perfect race feels like.” A concrete plan, a few strategies…why not expect that which you’re planning on working hard to accomplish?

I say above we MAY set expectations because, as is typically the case in sport, it ultimately depends on the athlete.  For runner #1 who expects to run with a certain intensity level (“I really should push it hard tomorrow”), doing so may produce unnecessary pre-competition pressure, muscular tension, and an excess of unhelpful mental chatter.  For runner #2 who expects to run with a certain intensity level (“I really should push it hard tomorrow”), doing so may act as fuel, increasing motivation and focus levels and pump him up beyond belief.  We’re all idiosyncratic, and that makes the field of sport psychology so addictively challenging.

Leave behind expectations that are result-driven, as it’s something we very seldom have full control over.  Focus on the process, develop a plan for how you’ll achieve those process goals, and, whether or not expectations are set, allow yourself to be appreciative and gratified once they’re accomplished.